Lost lullaby
by chloemcg
Summary: (Warning: Azran Legacy spoilers) Professor Layton wakes up from a horrible nightmare from his past. Can a certain man lend him a helping hand?


**Disclaimer: I would NEVER own the characters of Professor Layton. I don't own ANYTHING here, Level 5 games does, however.**

**Lost lullaby.**

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><p>Professor Hershel Layton tossed and turned in bed, groaning and whimpering in his slumber as the many painful memories surfaced in his mind and the echoes of those familiar voices whispered like the wind inside his ears. He shivered beneath the blankets and subconsciously tugged the blankets of his bed over his form as if to warm himself up despite it not even being a single nip in the air.<p>

The darkness of his own bedroom should have been enough to keep those dreams away, they should have just swallowed him up in a land of darkness and tranquility. Oh how he wished that had actually happened.

"N-No...no..." The Professor whimpered softly, his face scrunching up as he let out a shuddered breath from his lungs. He writhed where he was curled, kicking at the mattress he lain atop of as a pool of his sweat began to seep into the cozy material he was supposed to be sleeping on; he was having a horrible nightmare.

He gave a startled wheeze when he kicked the blankets off of him. His dream was beginning to get more intense now.

"M-Mother...n-no, please, don't leave us," The Professor pleaded through his rectangular facial features clenching tightly with droplets of sweat trickling down his face. He gritted his teeth and proceeded to kick at the blankets covering his body again as he laid there paralysed. Tears actually gathered at the corners of his tightly-shut little black eyes as his breath halted in his throat and images that plagued his mind each and every night had begun to spin all around his mind.

It was as if his own memories were tormenting him.

Those tears that had collected around his eyes now began to trail down his cheeks despite his eyes being closed and they dampened the pillows his head thrashed about on.

Clawing tightly at the bed sheets, Professor Layton felt his heart pound inside his chest, it mingled with the sound of crying.

It was a high pitched noise that sounded oh-so familiar to him as the heart-breaking sounds assaulted his eardrums and images of two kindly figures who he had named his parents being pulled away from him by a group of men dressed in black and rather intimidating clothing. He felt himself be enveloped in a nice protective hug as he stared at the door with a horrified expression.

The Professor's voice quivered, his strong and sophisticated tone cracking beneath the memories of what he knew perfectly well was his childhood.

"N-Nnngh! S-Stop, I am begging you!" The Professor cried out as loud as he could and his fist repeatedly rammed against his pillow in frustration. His closed eyes began to get all hot and they stung so bad that both of his eyeballs might as well have been being impaled with needles. However, he couldn't open his eyes.

He didn't want to leave for some reason despite this dream clouding everything he ever learnt and making it so everything he had learnt in his adult life thus far had been eradicated from his memory and replaced with a six year old's mentality. He yanked roughly at the blankets wrapped around him as he rolled around in bed desperately, his emotional agony knowing no bounds.

It all sped through his mind like a train going at full speed. He didn't even get much out as he saw the smiling faces of his biological parents. He saw their faces through tear-blurred vision but he could tell that their faces were telling both him and his brother to be strong no matter what.

He only managed a howl as his parents were finally pulled out the house "DADDY, MUMMY, NOOOOOO!"

Those were words nobody thought the Professor would say...except if he was in a situation like this.

He bolted upright in bed, sitting up and taking in every single shred of his surroundings. He panted heavily as he tried to get himself to calm down and his head whipped about urgently as if to make absolute sure that he was most definitely awake now and no longer in the tormenting memories of his mind.

He hardly noticed that the moment he cried out, a certain young boy had already threw the door open and rushed by the Professor's side and went to see what was the matter.

Luke looked at the Professor with worried eyes, his face etched with concern as he looked dazed. He looked like he had just awoken himself yet there was a certain softness in his childish gaze as he examined each and every part of Professor Layton's being as if to check for any injuries. He calmed himself down and asked his mentor "Professor, are you okay?"

The Professor breathed and swallowed, his eyes sticking as they were wide from panic.

He felt sweat stick to his tan skin and his heart was basically drumming rhythmically inside his chest to harmonise with his irregular breathing patterns. He slowly hung his head low and buried his face into his palms, a choked sob muffling from his throat, and the salty tears he cried managed to quietly slip from the gaps between Professor Layton's fingers and drip down on to the blankets blanketing him.

Luke, feeling horrible for his usually gentlemanly mentor, decided to take some action as he rubbed soothing circles around his recumbent spinal cord. He could feel the damp sweat seep through the Professor's orange pyjama shirt and dampen his own small hand as he tried to comfort the Professor.

"Don't cry, Professor, it's alright..." Luke assured softly.

The Professor wouldn't deny it; he felt pathetic right now. He was crying because he had a horrid nightmare and now his apprentice, a young boy, was comforting him. It was normally switched around and he was the adult here.

...This was embarrassing, to put it simply.

After crying to himself for a long five minutes, Professor Layton finally made his face part from his hands and he looked apologetically at Luke whom only grinned sadly when seeing that the Professor had finally calmed down.

Choking back some sobs, Professor Layton apologised through a hoarse voice "I am sorry, Luke, I did not intend to awake you..." He forced a smile, some tear stains lingering on his face while he had his face directed right towards Luke.

He reached over to his left and switched on the bedside lamp, hastily rubbing the tears away from his eyes with a sleeve, before he looked back to Luke whom only glared at him with a mere brow. The boy folded his arms in a way to match the expression!

The Professor sighed and closed his eyes. He couldn't fall back to sleep after having that horrible nightmare, not again. He recalled many nights when he would awake to discover that Luke was put in the same situation but there was a simple remedy that would calm him down to an extent of hushing him and lulling him back to sleep.

Yet, he had a nagging doubt that he could be so easily put back to sleep in the same way after that.

Luke opened his mouth to say something but then a voice interrupted him:

"What's happened in here?" A familiar voice asked in the doorway, grabbing both Luke and Layton's attention as they looked towards the source of the voice to find a familiar friend standing there with a confused and worried expression on his face. He sleepily had his spectacled eyes lidded in exhaustion and he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he pushed one arm on the door to keep it open.

Fellow archeologist, Professor Desmond Sycamore, glanced worriedly across at Professor Layton and when he saw the lingering tears welling up in those innocent black eyes; he felt his heart crumble into a million pieces when he instantly realised what the problem was.

Realising what needed to be done, Desmond softly nodded to Luke and requested "My boy, can you please leave Hershel and me alone for a minute or two?"

Luke hesitated on leaving the Professor alone after such a scare but he did obey his orders and silently left the room with a heaviness in his step. He lumbered out the open door and wandered down the hallways so he could climb back to his snugly bed.

When both Desmond and the terrified Hershel were left alone in the bedroom; neither of them spoke a word. They simply didn't say a single word to each other until the Professor told Sycamore with a trembling voice "Y-You don't need to be in here, Professor, I-I can go back to sleep."

Desmond Sycamore, however, would have none of it as he seated himself at the edge of the gentleman's bed "Layton, you had a nightmare. That is just something I cannot ignore."

The Professor sighed. Even though they were on a crucial adventure, he could hardly believe that he was sleeping aboard the Bostonius. This was a flying airship and it was one that made him feel completely like he was at home, it was an oddly cushy feeling indeed. He couldn't really lie to his co-partner in this case either.

But there was something about Sycamore's eyes...there was something familiar about those rose coloured rims he called pupils. It made Layton feel safe and secure, like a child would with their blanket.

Sycamore wore a stern yet caring look on his face as he asked, smoothing any sleepiness from his voice "Now. Tell me what's the matter?"

Professor Layton thought it over. He couldn't possibly dump all of his troubles on the poor man but, then again, he was offering his services to make him feel better and what kind of gentleman would he be if he turned down such a generous offer?

Sniffling, Professor Layton shuddered and looked up at the fellow archeologist before he admitted "...I...I have these horrid nightmares about how my parents were taken away from me. These men come in and grab my real mother and father...and..." He shudders, not wanting to remember any of what he had just seen through the dark imaginings of his mind.

But Sycamore seemed very sad...it was the oddest thing. He seemed both sympathetic but there was something else in those eyes of his and it wasn't the familiarity either. It was some kind of pity. Towards those two whom had brought the man wearing the top hat into the world.

Before the poor Professor could say anymore, Sycamore planted a kindly hand on top of his shoulder.

The Professor looked into Sycamore's eyes once again but this time, he could not suppress the tears threatening to fall down his cheeks as he felt his lower lip give up as his whole mouth quivered through the floods of tears wanting to break through the Professor's defences.

He threw his head in his hands as he begun to openly sob again, his body wracking. It was obvious that the poor man was suffering with these nightmares and that was what exactly broke Sycamore's heart. Desmond would have cried himself but he could not utter a single word without giving away too much to the man.

He simply wrapped an instinctive arm around Professor Layton and brought him in towards him. He wrapped his arms around Layton, trapping him in this embrace, but not once did he fight against it.

Sycamore softly patted what he knew was his little brother's back and he made sure Hershel's face was buried against his pyjama shirt. He even slid his fingertips downwards to stroke the back of Layton's head, making sure his fingers sunk deep through Layton's short hair and into his scalp, and he closed his eyes whilst listening intently to the gentleman's soft yet hurried breathing.

So, thinking about what exactly he could do to soothe Layton's hurt, Sycamore recalled something that he used to do for Hershel when he was still but a young child. He sung a song that his mother had created when Professor Layton was a baby and was having horrible nights. But, after both her and their father was captured, he would sing it to him to get him to sleep.

_"Hush little angel, sleep away..._

_Don't you fear, I will stay._

_You just dream and close your eyes._

_When you wake I shall be here...always..." _

By the time Desmond had finished singing the lullaby, he noticed that Hershel's breathing had softened into almost nothing. His face was still buried in his top but he was a lot more limp and his breaths were laced with gentle snores that was muffled by the shirt his face was buried in.

That gave Sycamore the assumption that Layton had already fallen asleep. Smiling softly, the man with the ginger bunches gently made Layton part from his chest as he laid him back down in bed. He could see that Hershel had, indeed, fallen into a relatively peaceful slumber but he didn't want to leave the man alone; not after not seeing him for years.

The other archeologist tucked the blankets around Professor Layton and watched for minutes as his thin chest heaved up and down with each and every breath he took. He slept like a child with a teddy bear and it was sort of adorable to watch as the now grown up gentleman snooze his worries away.

Sighing, Desmond Sycamore bent down and kissed Layton's forehead and he whispered to him whilst brushing a strand of his chestnut brown hair out from his eyes "I am so sorry I have not been there for you, baby brother."

And he sat by his brother's side throughout the whole night and eventually, he fell fast asleep too with his head laying against Hershel's chest and the upper half of his body laying on top of his own;

he didn't want to leave him alone and risk him having anymore nightmares about...that night.

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><p><strong>AN: Hi, everyone! This is a fanfic full of Hershel and Desmond/Descole brotherly fluff. I hope you liked it a lot. But he warned that this has spoilers for the Azran legacies so play the game before reading this.**

**I know that I sort of made Professor Layton out of character here but I thought about bringing on some kind of trauma. The Professor DID have his parents snatched from him when he was a small child after all. **

**Anyways please review and tell me what you think of this story.**

**-Chloemcg**


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